Every man, regardless of rank, crowded to the front of the building. There in the yard, were several mail sacks. Three or four of our number were selected as temporary postmasters, and several others as temporary policemen, authorized to keep the crowd back. Then the distribution began.
The officers selected for this purpose, commenced calling out the address on the letters. As a name was called, the eager "Here!" would be heard, were the person present. Sometimes the response was heard, "Sent to Columbia (or Salisbury)," as the case might be; and often, after a mournful pause, would come the melancholy answer, "Dead!"
I shall never forget one poor fellow, a Second Lieutenant of a New York regiment. As his name was called, he eagerly pressed forward to receive the longed-for letter, and before it reached his hand, cried out: "Hurry up! Hand it over! Hurrah! I knew mother would not forget me."
When it reached him he was so excited that he could scarcely hold the envelope. Hastily opening it—there was no seal to break—he glanced at the contents; and then, such a groan of concentrated disappointment and misery I never heard before and hope never to hear again. No words were spoken; no tear stained his cheek; quietly working his way back out of the crowd, he sought his quarters and temporarily passed out of my mind, and in a moment was forgotten by the eager, anxious crowd.
When the excitement was partly over and I had read the long-expected letter from my wife, I sought him out. He was sitting upon a box with his head resting on his hands, a picture of despair.
"You seem to have had bad news," I said.
His reply was to place the letter in my hands. It was evidently from a stranger, and in a few words informed him that his mother had died shortly after his capture, and when on her death bed had asked the writer to convey her blessing to her boy.
"I am the only child," he cried; "and my mother was a widow."
Attempts at consolation were useless. I did not try. The poor fellow never rallied from the blow. He was removed to the hospital and died a month later. His capture had killed his mother, and her death killed him. Only two of the thousands of victims offered up on the altar of the country! One more family destroyed—a sacrifice to the unholy ambition that drew the South into a rebellion whose brilliant commencement was only equalled by its inglorious ending.
In the latter part of August or the first of September, yellow fever made its appearance in Charleston. To a Northerner there was something terrifying in the thought of being penned up there, to meet this pestilence. We had endured famine, but this was worse. We knew that there had been one or two cases in the prison, and all had been exposed, or might have been. The patients had been removed under the care of the Sisters of Charity, God bless them! Having been brought up a Protestant, I had imbibed a prejudice against everything pertaining to Catholicism; but since experiencing their gentle ministrations in Charleston, where they literally obeyed the Scriptural injunction: "Sick they ministered unto us, in prison they visited us, and naked they clothed us," I have learned a broader charity. I have learned that neither creed nor sex make the Christian or the hero. I never now see their distinctive costume without a feeling of gratitude and respect.